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Category: LI's Conservative Leaders

“Lower taxes, less waste, and more accountable government” is what the Canadian Taxpayers Federation fights for daily. Aaron Gunn, Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s director of special projects, has been handed the reins to a new initiative called Generation Screwed. Generation Screwed is “a campus-based movement aiming to raise awareness and solicit action from young people across Canada on issues of government debt, deficits and unfunded liability,” Aaron said.

“If it wasn’t for the Leadership Institute, I would not be where I am today,” National Right To Work Committee and National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation President Mark Mix said.

Across all 50 states Mark and his staff fight leftist laws that require union membership as a condition for employment. Their organization believes that all Americans must have the right to join a union if they choose to, but no one should ever be forced to affiliate with a union in order to get or keep a job.

In college, Mark met a person at James Madison University who changed his life.

“I still appreciate a good bow tie, but I think I have found my calling."

For Katie Thompson, her first love was bow ties. A born-and-raised southerner, she began at the University of South Carolina as a fashion merchandising major, but life had other plans for her.

A friend convinced her to run for a seat in the student senate. After winning the election, she changed her major to public relations, added a political science minor, and joined College Republicans. Her political career was launched.

A friend convinced her to run for a seat in the student senate. - See more at: http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/news/?NR=10232&pcn=8675309#sthash.3UFk3bDd.dpuf

“Ten years ago, when a woman stepped on campus she found chapters of the National Organization for Women, women’s studies departments full of campus feminists, and women’s centers not open to supporting all women,” Network of Enlightened Women Founder Karin Agness said. “At the time, there were no women’s groups specifically catering to conservative college women.”

That’s not the case anymore. In 2004, with no help from her university and being turned away from The Women’s Center at the University of Virginia, Karin Agness decided to start the Network of Enlightened Women, a network for conservative university women that has grown into more than 20 chapters nationwide.

Spina bifida is a medical condition that affects the spine and nerves for newborn babies like James Christophersen, now 26, and about 1,500 babies each year. Doctors told James’ mother that she should end his life before it began. If allowed to survive, they said, James would not walk on his own or even live to adulthood.

Now, more than two decades later, James is a conservative leader fighting against the very same mindset in today’s medical community. He works at Students for Life of America as the director of Med Students for Life and Law Students for Life.

Sharon Day, the Texas-born Indiana businesswoman turned Florida political activist and grandmother of five, was elected in January 2011 as co-chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) to serve with Chairman Reince Priebus. “We want more women in the political process," Sharon said. "More importantly, we need them…we need their voices in elective office or as activists.”

Matt Krause, the 33-year-old first term state representative in Texas, has been ranked the third most conservative member of the entire 150-member House and has been named one of the “Top Five House Courageous Conservatives” by the Texas Conservative Coalition.

He said, "I would not be where I am today in the Texas House of Representatives if it were not for the Leadership Institute’s training. LI gave me the tools to succeed in the political world.”

It was a normal Wednesday when sophomore Evan Schrage went into his literature class at Michigan State University (MSU) – until the lecture and questioning turned vicious. His professor, William Penn, veered off track in the creative writing class with a rant about “dead white Republicans” who had “raped this country.” Evan videoed the diatribe and posted it online at the Leadership Institute’s Campus Reform news site, where the video went viral. (Watch it here.) Campus Reform, which has had more than three million unique visitors this year, is the web’s number-one source for news about college campuses.